SEACS William Willetts’ lecture

Dr Kenson Kwok, a life member of Southeast East Asian Ceramic Society, will share a short history of Peranakan museum exhibits in Singapore and Malaysia and the phenomenon of things Peranakan in popular culture. He will argue an alternative idea that only part of Peranankan material culture is uniquely

Peranakan because much of what we believe to be Peranakan was part of wider consumer and popular culture at the time.

This is a public lecture
Do join us for a lively debate and a sampling of Nonya delicacies

About the speaker
Dr Kenson Kwok graduated as an architect and environmental psychologist before returning to Singapore to join the Housing Development Board as a research officer.

In 1992, he moved to the National Museum as a senior curator and in 1994 became the Director of the Asian Civilisations Museum. His mission was to set up a museum that would trace the ancestral cultures of Singaporeans. With the success of the first ACM in the former Tao Nan School, a second ACM was set up in Empress Place. The first ACM was then reconfigured to become The Peranakan Museum devoted entirely to Peranakan culture.

At the end of 2009, Dr Kwok opted to retire to pursue his own projects and interests around the region. He is currently looking into certain aspects of Peranakan material culture and will share some tentative findings from his on-going study.